Fork-tailed Storm Petrel

Hydrobates furcatus (Gmelin, JF, 1789)

Fork-tailed Storm Petrel, Hydrobates furcatus, breeds on islands in the northern Pacific, from the Kuril and Commander Islands through the Aleutians and the Gulf of Alaska to northern California. Outside the breeding season it ranges to the east coast of Japan, the southern Sea of Okhotsk, the northern Bering Sea and the central California coast. It is a small seabird in the Hydrobatidae family and is the only member of its family described as bluish-grey. It nests in rock crevices or small burrows, laying a single egg in one colony.

Order

Procellariiformes

Family

Hydrobatidae — Northern Storm Petrels

Breeding range

Pacific Ocean: islands off n Kuril and Commander Is. (se Russia), Aleutian Is., and Gulf of Alaska to n California

Nonbreeding range

to e coast of Japan, s Sea of Okhotsk, n Bering Sea, and c California coast